--- Autonomy-2007.01.26.txt	Fri Jan 26 16:26:29 2007
+++ Autonomy-2007.02.20.txt	Tue Feb 20 13:04:54 2007
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@
 
 
 jmsmithcom@gmail.com
- 113687 words
+ 113257 words
 
 
 
@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@
 
 Jean-Michel Smith
 
-Version XR.1.Q
+Version XR.2.K
 
 
 Copyright © 2002 - 2007 Jean-Michel Smith
@@ -3491,95 +3491,86 @@
 -John Adams, 18th Century C.E.
 Sunday, October 21, 2057, 6:02 PM Washington Time
 Metadate: 2.US-k:3:K me-t new Epoch21 
-'How can anyone with so many architectural enhancements be so utterly stupid?' Marguerite raged.
-'They're reacting emotionally,' Michael replied. 'Most of us still carry some attachment to our bodies, however seldom we actually visit the Physical.'
-'I value my body,' Marguerite replied. 'It infuriates me to think it's about to be destroyed. But to die clinging to it? That's insane!'
-'Marguerite's right,' Kyle agreed. 'The missile will reach its target in less than a minute. They can't hope to get to a safe distance before then.'
-'The vast majority of those in Alaska have behaved rationally,' Michael pointed out. 'Most suspended themselves and went into static storage a little earlier then scheduled. Only forty-eight people chose not to back themselves up before offloading and trying to save their bodies.'
-'Why didn't they? Transloading takes only a few seconds on the new network. What do they hope to accomplish by dying like this?'
-'Who can say?' Michael shook his head. 'Kyle here lost his body because he was afraid to copy himself. Maybe they're just as afraid, or have other aversions.'
-'I got over it,' Kyle pointed out. 'I have thousands of copies.'
-'That doesn't count, Kyle, and you know it. A group mind isn't the same as having independent copies of yourself running around.'
-'Touché,' Kyle shrugged. 'I value my identity.'
-A visual appeared before them, two large, sleek helicopters flying low through a forested, snow covered Alaskan valley. The image was a real time video feed, frozen by the time differential into a static image. 'They're only five miles south of the enclave,' Marguerite said.
-Kyle shook his head sadly. 'It took the nano almost five minutes to construct the aircraft. If it hadn't been for that they would have made it.'
-'They still might,' Michael said. Kyle and Marguerite looked at him with scepticism.
-'It isn't likely,' Michael admitted. 'But the missile could fail to detonate. If the US has to launch a second one, the delay will be enough for them to reach minimum safe distance.'
-'You're grasping at straws, dear.' The air shimmered, and Sarah appeared.
-Michael hugged her, then stood with his arms around her as they regarded the image. Almost imperceptibly, but in real time, the rotor of the helicopter swept forward.
-'I can't believe our government would go along with this,' Kyle said.
-'You saw the conversation between the President and that Double Eye agent,' Marguerite replied. 'They didn't have much of a choice. Play ball, or become another Thailand.'
-'They should have stood up to the WTO. We have fucking nuclear weapons, for crying out loud! How the hell is the UN going to bomb us without inviting Armageddon? It was a bluff, and the president should have called it.'
-'I don't think Double Eye was bluffing. I think WIPO and the WTO are more scared of us than they are of an atomic war.'
-'That doesn't make any sense!'
-'Yes,' Sarah replied, her voice quiet. 'It does. The European and Chinese ABM systems would stop almost all of the US missiles. Whereas the other powers could easily overpower the US system.'
-'They'd still lose some cities!' Kyle exclaimed. 'It's crazy!'
-'Acceptable losses,' Marguerite told him, almost sympathetically. 'They days of American invulnerability are forty years in the past. Your president had no choice.'
-'They're right,' Michael said. 'The powers would rather lose a few cities than see their architectures of control made impotent by bunch of tech-savvy dissidents.'
-'Marguerite should have gone over Katy Sinclair's head,' Kyle said. 'Gone straight to the president, the head of the WTO, somebody!'
-'These debates and what-ifs aren't helpful,' Michael said. 'Everyone who can be has been rescued from Alaska. Those forty-eight stubborn souls are simply on their own. There's nothing more we can do.'
-'This is a massacre!' Sarah's voice was anguished.
-'Atomic weapons? The idiots are using a sledge hammer to kill a fly.'
-'Oh, I don't know, Kyle. Their goal is clearly to wipe out everyone in the enclave, not just drive us away.' Michael looked thoughtful. 'In that sense even their sledge hammer isn't sufficient. Everyone who was willing transloaded to safety with time to spare.'
-'Oh, dear.'
-'What is it, Marguerite?' 
-'Hideki Tokata, the guy who's been heading up my crypto group for the last couple daracircadians,22 has just intercepted a report addressed to Robert Leahy. It's from the Double Eye labs in Beijing. We've got real problems, guys. It seems their scientists have figured out how to determine the physical wiring of our Autonomous Network without actually tracing out the wire.'
-'Magnetic resonance,' Michael replied. 'We've always known that that was a possibility.'
-'It won't do them much good,' Kyle said. 'The strength of the field is an inverse square function. Their best equipment won't be able to track the wire from more than two or three metres away. That's next to useless.'
-'I'm inclined to agree,' Michael said. 'They can't possibly deploy enough equipment before we launch for it to be a real threat. Besides, most of the network is buried far too deep for them to find anyway.'
-'Urban areas might be a problem,' Kyle pointed out. 'Much of the wiring there is fairly close to the surface. We were in a hurry to get linked back up, remember?'
-'Yes, but even there they will need to deploy some rather specialized equipment, and they will have all kinds of electromagnetic interference from conventional wiring and power cables to contend with.'
-'Not if the field in question were a great deal stronger,' Marguerite replied. 'Tune a radio receiver to monitor a particular pulse signal, and anyone with a cheap GPS and moving map software could map the thing.'
-'We would have to drive a great deal more amperage through the superconductor than we currently do for that to be a problem,' Michael said. 'Fortunately, our Nodes only require sixty or seventy microamps to run, so that isn't an issue.'
-'We need to double check the safety margins of those power hookups to our Nodes,' Marguerite said.
-'Already done,' Kyle replied. 'There will be an electromagnetic pulse throughout the Autonomous Network when the nuke strikes, but it will be distributed fairly evenly, and won't spike nearly high enough to pose a danger to the rest of the network.'
-'I'm not talking about the atomic blast,' Marguerite replied. 'I'm talking about Microwave induced magnetic inductance. They're planning to zap our network with microwave signals in two dozen different cities with a frequency in resonance with the ninety Hertz we use to transmit power and data.' Marguerite offered them a knowledge engram detailing the procedure.
-'That will induce several hundred amps of current after just one hour,' Michael acknowledged. 'And with nowhere to dump the excess current, the amount carried on the superconductor with go up geometrically.'
-Kyle's face went white. 'Our Nodes are well designed and flawlessly constructed,' he said. 'Safeguards will disconnect them before they reach burnout levels, but three and a half hours of that and we'll all be forced offline.'
-'The network will be silent once more.' Michael agreed. 'We'll not only be out of touch with one another, our Nodes will power themselves down to prevent burnout.'
-'They don't even have to trace out the network,' Kyle replied. 'They can simply use it to kill us all, then pick up the wreckage at their leisure. I thought we'd engineered the thing to be a little safer than that.'
-'It is safe,' Michael replied. 'Safe from power outages, safe from any realistic surge in power. The network itself and our Nodes are designed to handle power surges nine orders of magnitude greater than their power requirements themselves. No one imagined an outside source dumping current onto the line in a deliberate effort to fry our equipment!'
-'Well god damn it, we should have!'
-'How could we have possibly guessed they'd do something like this?' Marguerite asked.
-'We're supposed to be brighter than they are,' Kyle raged. 'What the hell are we doing with that intelligence if we're not using it to out-think the enemy.'
-'Being bright doesn't mean we're omniscient,' Michael replied quietly. 'The network was built in a hurry-too much of a hurry as it turns out. We left ourselves vulnerable in a way we didn't foresee.'
-'We should have designed a way to dump excess current,' Marguerite said.
-'We could just tie in with the electrical grid,' Kyle suggested. 'But they are typically running at fifty or sixty Hertz, while we run at ninety-five Hertz. Still, a few strategically placed transformers-'
-'It won't work,' Michael replied. 'Our network is superconducting and theirs isn't. Excess current would take the path of least resistance, flowing from the grid into our network, not the other way around. It would only make things worse.'
-'Ground the whole goddamn thing then. Dump the current into the earth itself.'
-'Come on, Kyle, don't be a jerk,' Marguerite said. 'You know that won't work. Ground the circuit and you have current, zero voltage, and no power. Our Nodes go dark and with them our minds.'
-'Not to mention our ability to communicate, even if we could power our Nodes independently,' Sarah shook her head. 'Who would have thought perfect conductivity would become a problem.'
+'I don't think they're going to make it,' Kyle said. 'The missile will reach its target in less than a minute.'
+'They never should have set out for the enclave in the first place. Not this close to launch.' Marguerite summoned a a visual of the Alaskan enclave. The time differential made the image appear frozen, one helicopter lodged in the sky about fives miles away, fleeing for its life.
+'They wanted to preserve their bodies,' Michael said. 'We expected the enclaves to remain hidden longer than this, maybe even to escape notice altogether.'
+'So much for that hope,' Kyle snorted with disgust. 'We should have been monitoring Double Eye communications in real-time, not queuing up recordings for later review.'
+'If you think you can do better, Kyle, by all means be my guest!' Marguerite snapped.
+'It would have given us another ten minutes to prepare! These people could have turned back a few miles earlier, maybe made it to minimum safe distance.'
+'Her team is stretched to the limit managing the rescue operation,' Michael reminded him. 'And none of us could have anticipated the government would resort to nuclear weapons.'
+'We'll restore them from backups,' Marguerite added. 'They'll only going to lose a few memories, mostly of uncomfortable travel across frozen wilderness. It's not like they're going to die.'
+'They might make it,' Michael said. Kyle and Marguerite looked at him with scepticism.
+'It isn't likely,' Michael admitted. 'But the missile could fail to detonate. If the government has to launch a second one, the delay will be enough for them to get to safety.'
+Sarah shimmered into existence. 'You're grasping at straws, dear.'
+Michael hugged her, then stood with his arms around her as they regarded the image. The rotor of the helicopter swept forward in slow time-lapse.
+'I still can't believe our government would go along with this,' Kyle said.
+'You saw the conversation between the President and that Double Eye agent,' Marguerite said. 'He didn't have much of a choice.'
+'We have fucking nuclear weapons, for crying out loud! What's the UN going to do, start World War IV? Double Eye was bluffing and the president knew it.'
+'I don't think they were bluffing. I think WIPO and the WTO are more scared of us than they are of an atomic war.'
+'That makes no sense!'
+'Yes it does,' Sarah's said quietly. 'The European and Chinese ABM systems would stop almost all of the US missiles, whereas the other powers might overpower the American system. Even if they didn't, Double Eye could smuggle in suitcase nukes as a prelude to a wider UN enforcement action.'
+'We'd still take out some of their cities!' Kyle retorted.
+'Yes, but your country would be wiped out,' Marguerite's voice was sympathetic. 'They days of American invulnerability are forty years in the past. Your president had no choice.'
+'They're using a sledge hammer to kill a fly,' Sarah's voice was anguished.
+Michael tugged on his beard. 'In a sense even their sledge hammer isn't enough. Their goal is to kill everyone in the enclave, right? Decapitate us, even wipe us out. But everyone in the enclave has already transloaded to safety, and while those unfortunate travellers aren't going to survive, their backups will.'
+Kyle nodded. 'In other words, even with nukes they failed.'
+'Exactly. Think of what that means, from their point of view.'
+'Merde!' Marguerite cursed. 'We have problems.'
+Sarah turned. 'What is it?' 
+'Hideki Tokata, the guy who's been heading up my crypto group for the last couple daracircadians,22 has just intercepted a report addressed to Robert Leahy. It seems their scientists have figured out how to map our Autonomous Network.' She shared a knowledge engram with them.
+'Magnetic resonance,' Michael's shoulders slumped. 'We've always known that was a possibility.'
+'It won't do them much good,' Kyle said. 'The strength of the field is an inverse square function. They won't be able to track the wire from more than two or three metres away. That means sending out agents to walk every mile of the wire. It'll take them weeks. By then we'll be long gone.'
+'He's right,' Michael agreed. 'They can't possibly deploy enough equipment before we launch. Besides, most of the network is buried too deep for them to track at all.'
+'Urban areas might be a problem,' Sarah pointed out. 'Much of the wiring there is fairly close to the surface.'
+'Oh, hell!' Marguerite's voice shook. 'Guys, we need to double check the safety margins of those power feeds to our Nodes.'
+'Already done,' Kyle assured her. 'The electromagnetic pulse from the nuke will resonate through the network, but its maximum peak isn't enough to pose a danger to our Nodes.'
+'I'm not talking about the atomic blast,' Marguerite replied. 'Double Eye is amping up our network with microwave signals in two dozen different cities, tuned to a frequency in resonance with the ninety Hertz we use to transmit power and data. ' Marguerite offered them another knowledge engram, detailing the procedure.
+'Christ!' Michael cursed. 'That will induce several hundred amps of current after just one hour.'
+'With nowhere to dump the excess current, the amount carried on the superconductor with go up geometrically,' Marguerite confirmed.
+Kyle looked like someone had punched him in the stomach. 'We'll reach burnout levels in less than four hours.'
+'Closer to three and a half,' Michael said. 'Though the safeguards on our Nodes will disconnect them before that happens.'
+Kyle swore. 'Fat lot of good that will do us. We'll be effectively dead. Powered off and disconnected, and since it's unlikely the authorities will see fit to plug us all back in again, I'd say that means curtains for all of us.'
+'They're using our own network against us,' Sarah said.
+Marguerite shook her head. 'I would have hoped we would have designed something a little safer.'
+'It is safe,' Kyle replied. 'Safe from power outages, safe from any realistic power surges. The network itself and our Nodes are designed to handle power surges nine orders of magnitude greater than their power requirements themselves. No one imagined an outside source dumping current onto the line in a deliberate effort to fry our equipment!'
+'Well goddamn it, we should have!' Marguerite insisted. 'We're supposed to be brighter than they are!'
+'That doesn't make us omniscient!' Kyle shot back. 'We didn't foresee a nuclear attack either, did we?' He added pointedly.
+'Calm down, both of you,' Michael said. 'We all know hindsight's twenty-twenty. There are eighty thousand of us in the Community, and none of us foresaw either of these scenarios. Instead of blaming each other, how about some ideas on how to deal with this.'
+'We need to the excess current,' Marguerite said.
+'We might be able to tie in with the electrical grid,' Kyle suggested. 'But they are typically running at fifty or sixty Hertz, while we run at ninety-five Hertz. Still, a few strategically placed transformers-'
+Michael shook his head. 'It won't work. Our network is superconducting and theirs isn't. Excess current will take the path of least resistance, flowing from the grid into our network, not the other way around. It would only make things worse.'
+'Superconductivity,' Kyle snorted. 'Who would have guessed it would be our downfall.'
 'Perhaps it won't be,' Michael replied. 'I'm forwarding a memory engram of this conversation to the rest of the strategy group, and including a copy of your knowledge engram, Marguerite. We have to know exactly how much time we are going to have when they begin this attack, and plan our launch accordingly. Ah, Mingmei, welcome. I see you got my message. It looks like we are going to be launching early after all.'
-Mingmei nodded. 'I'm preparing contingencies. If we can gain a couple of hours, we'll be much better off. Four would be ideal, three sufficient for decent survival odds.'
-'I've looked over the numbers,' Kyle was calm once again. 'Its a fairly smooth curve. Assuming they deploy as the report suggests, we'll reach burnout levels about one hundred and ninety three minutes after they begin. We may have a few more minutes than that if they ramp up their efforts slowly, less if they deploy more transmitters. Exact conditions are somewhat dependent on the geometry of their deployment.'
-'The Double Eye report suggests only the enhanced magnetic resonance field, and a means of tracking it with inexpensive, commonly available equipment,' Marguerite pointed out. 'It mentions potential damage to our equipment only in passing, with no numbers or estimates as to how or when.'
-'They don't know enough about our Nodes to even hazard a guess  as to their design limits or failure modes,' Michael replied. 'So they aren't guessing at all. But this does mean those of us in urban areas are at even greater risk.'
-'Yes,' Kyle agreed. 'They'll be tracing the networks to our homes almost immediately. We're going to have to juggle our schedules a little bit. Those in major cities should start going into static storage and shutting down now.'
-'God dammit!' Marguerite cursed. 'Michael, I wish your scheme to self-power our Nodes had worked out. Being vulnerable to external electricity has always been our weakest point.' 
+'I'm preparing contingencies,' Mingmei informed them. 'If we can gain a couple of hours, we'll be much better off. Four would be ideal, three sufficient for decent survival odds.'
+'I'm looking over the numbers,' Kyle was calm, all business. 'Its a fairly smooth curve. Assuming they deploy as Marguerite expects, we'll reach burnout levels in one hundred and ninety three minutes. Give or take, depending on how many transmitters they deploy, how quickly they can bring them online, and the geometry of their deployment.'
+'I've tracked down the Double Eye report detailing their attack strategy. It only mentions potential damage to our equipment in passing, with no numbers or estimates as to how or when. Their primary focus is tracing our network.'
+'They don't know enough about our Nodes to even guess at their design limits or failure modes,' Michael replied. 'Looks like they'll be concentrating on urban areas first.'
+'Fuck,' Kyle said. 'Over three quarters of my gestalt is located in urban areas.'
+'A lot of us are in harms way, Kyle.'
+'We're going to have to juggle our schedules a little bit,' Mingmei said. 'Those in major cities should start going into static storage and shutting down now.'
+'Goddammit!' Marguerite cursed. 'I'll be losing half my team just when I need them most!'
+'I'll lend a hand,' Kyle said. 'My group-self will survive until they physically disconnect the Nodes, and I can keep myself synced with the rescue supernodes until then. Damn, Michael, I wish your scheme to self-power our Nodes had worked out.' 
 'So do I,' Michael replied. 'Unfortunately, our superstring strummer doesn't work at small enough scales for that to be practical. It was that problem which revealed the fatal flaws in M+N theory.'
-'I'm going to do my initial planning for a launch at 2:25 Zulu,' Mingmei informed them. 'I'll optimize for that, then adjust accordingly if it turns out we have less, or more, time. Fifty seconds prior to launch only pilots and essential planning personnel should be actively running on the flyer's supernodes. Everyone else should be in static storage. Data communications will end no later than twenty seconds prior to launch, perhaps earlier if we are unlucky. All non-pilots should be suspended in static storage no later than two seconds prior to launch.'
-Kyle nodded. 'We have a number of fliers in urban locations. We should try to move as many as possible out of harms way.'
-'There isn't time,' Mingmei replied. 'Any movement entails too much risk of discovery. I've factored the possibility that we'll lose all our urban points of presence to enemy activity into the strategies I'll be presenting for final approval. Any fliers which do go undetected and manage to launch will be an added bonus.'
-'Fuck,' Kyle replied. 'Over three quarters of my gestalt is located in urban areas.'
-'I've just gotten word in from two, no, three different locations,' Marguerite said.
-'I know,' Michael replied. 'Current has just jumped from 0.05 amperes to 0.09. Its climbing the curve exactly as anticipated.'
-'There's our spike from Alaska,' Kyle observed, as the slow moving image of helicopter racing above a snow-shrouded valley was suddenly lost in blinding light. The destruction of the Alaskan Enclave, and the loss of forty eight physical lives, tragic though it was, seemed almost anticlimactic. 
-'They've only got two stations up and running,' Marguerite reported. 'Two that happen to be located at their laboratory facilities. They'll be ramping up a few more over the next twenty minutes.'
-'That's damn fast for people in the Physical,' Michael commented.
-'Twenty seconds from filing the report to bringing the first station on-line. I didn't know bureaucracies could work so quickly,' Marguerite replied.
-'Someone was quick on the trigger,' Kyle noted. 'I'll bet they're in a state of institutional panic.'
-'The person running this show, this Robert Leahy, certainly seems to have cut out the bureaucratic middlemen. He must have given the order the moment he read the report's abstract, and his scientists must have been ready to carry it out.'
-'What do we know about that guy,' Michael asked.
-'Not very much,' Marguerite admitted. 'Double Eye communications are only susceptible to interception because of a bug in their application of quantum cryptography. Unfortunately, their data storage isn't so accommodating.'
-'So we have Double Eye reacting almost as quickly to new developments as we do?'
-'Well, a few orders of magnitude slower, and with considerably less time to ponder their options than we have. But yeah, they're reacting in minutes and seconds, instead of hours or days.'
-'This power curve sets our timetable.' Mingmei looked thoughtful. 'It looks like it gives us just enough breathing room. OK, folks, launch will be at 2:21 Zulu. That is exactly three hours and twenty minutes from now. We'll have between forty seven and forty nine thousand fliers, plus those in the cities who manage to avoid capture. Our best bet is strategy seventy-one.' 
-'Feint to the south, main push up, let an escort of fliers sacrifice themselves in the hopes that the chosen flier, going ballistic along with its wrecked counterparts and jettisoning much of its own mass (and all of its own manoeuvrability) will be  mistaken by the enemy as so much wreckage at least until its inertia carries it out of range of their missile defence sats?'
-'That pretty well sums it up, Kyle,' Mingmei's smile was tight, tense. 'The plan is only 0.1% less likely overall to succeed than strategy sixty-six, but has the added value in that, to those on the ground, in the Physical, success will be indistinguishable from failure.' 
-'Our odds are still pretty lousy,' Kyle said.
-'Yeah,' Marguerite agreed. 'But if we make it, they'll never know and won't come looking. We'll have the breathing room we need.'
-Michael sighed. 'Its a good plan and a solid strategy. It'll have to do.'
-
+'I'm going to do my initial planning for a launch at 2:25 Zulu,' Mingmei told them. 'I'll optimise for that, then adjust accordingly if it turns out we have less, or more, time. Fifty seconds prior to launch only pilots and essential planning personnel should be actively running on the flyer's supernodes. Everyone else should be in static storage. Data communications will end no later than twenty seconds prior to launch, perhaps earlier if we are unlucky. All non-pilots should be suspended in static storage no later than two seconds prior to launch.'
+Kyle nodded. 'We have a number of fliers in urban areas. We should try to move as many as possible out of harms way.'
+'No way' Mingmei replied. 'Launching any of those aircraft, even for short flights, risks tipping our hand. The strategies I'll be presenting for final approval will assume we've lost all our urban fliers to enemy activity. Any that manage to go undetected and launch will be an added bonus.'
+'Current on the grid has just jumped to 0.09 amperes!' Michael announced.
+'I've got resonance signals in two, no, three different locations,' Marguerite added.
+'Amperage is climbing the power exactly as expected,' Kyle observed. 'Oops! There's our spike from Alaska.' The slow moving image of helicopter racing above a snow-shrouded valley was suddenly lost in blinding light. The destruction of the Alaskan Enclave seemed almost anticlimactic. 
+'They're hitting us from their labs in Switzerland and Beijing' Marguerite reported. 'They'll be ramping up a few more transmitters over the next twenty minutes.'
+Michael rubbed his forehead. 'That's damn fast for people in the Physical.'
+'Twenty seconds from filing the report to bringing the first station on-line,' Marguerite agreed. 'I didn't know bureaucracies could work so quickly.'
+'This Robert Leahy guy seems to have cut out the bureaucratic middlemen,' Michael said. 'He must have given the order the moment he saw the report.'
+'His scientists were on the ball too,' Kyle added. 'They had their equipment all set up and ready to go.'
+'What do we know about Mr. Leahy?' Michael asked.
+'Not enough,' Marguerite admitted. 'Double Eye communications are only susceptible to interception because of a bug in their application of quantum cryptography. Unfortunately, their data storage isn't so accommodating.'
+'Still, it looks like Double Eye is reacting to events almost as fast as we are.'
+'Actually, they're still a few orders of magnitude slower than us,' Marguerite smiled, 'and they aren't taking much time to consider their options, which may work to our advantage in the end.'
+'I've analysed the attack on our network,' Mingmei declared. 'The power amplification curve sets our timetable. I'm setting our launch for 2:21 Zulu. That gives us three hours and twenty minutes to finish the rescue operation and get ourselves into static storage. By then we should have between forty seven and forty nine thousand fliers built, plus whatever ships escape notice in the cities. I'm recommending we go with strategy number seventy-one.'
+'Strategy sixty-six has a 0.1% better chance of success,' Kyle replied.
+'It's not just about making it out of orbit, Kyle. After we escape, we still have to survive. With strategy seventy-seven, those in the Physical won't be able to distinguish success from failure. If we make it, the authorities will never know and won't come looking.'
+'That will give us the breathing room we need to rebuild,' Michael acknowledged. 'Its a good plan and a solid strategy.'
+'It'll have to do,' Kyle agreed.
 
 
 
@@ -3887,6 +3878,7 @@
 Maria nodded. 'Well done, Katy. Well done.'
 Katy's false smile vanished as Maria turned away and rejoined the party inside. She regarded the littered sky once again. Seventy thousand people, all of them private citizens. Seventy thousand out of twelve billion, able to upload their minds onto computers more powerful than any known in history. Seventy thousand people who had become, for a short time, more than human, who had been able to launch their own, personal space programs, something even the great alliances could no longer do! Katy glanced inside at Paul Eisner, Robert Leahy, and Maria Tatianoga exchanging self-congratulatory compliments amidst loud laughter as their champagne glasses clinked together, then turned her gaze back toward the horizon, wondering what else had been lost, what other wonders had been destroyed that afternoon. Another part of the city went dark, its lights winking out in another scheduled, rolling blackout. 
 Try though she might, she couldn't shake off the ugly, growing suspicion that she had been a part of what was probably one of the greatest crimes ever committed. An opportunity for humankind to rise above its own limitations had been squandered. No, not squandered. It had been crushed, taken away, denied to everyone by a few powerful oligarchs. Is this how human evolution ends? she wondered. Dead ended by the ruling elite's insatiable greed and lust for control? Shaking her head at the magnitude of the tragedy, Katy turned her back on the darkened city and the sparkling, debris-filled sky.
+THE END